Monday, August 30, 2010

Marker Color Keys

I often do marker color keys of scenes to give my painters. I can't paint, so markers are easy for me to dash out.They tend to fade in color over the years though, and I had a heck of a time trying to get the colors to scan right. They also look different on every computer screen I checked, so who knows what colors you'll see.This one is from my Bjork video and the colors here look much less saturated than in the original. I tried 2 adjustments and neither one is exactly right.

20 comments:

Amazing what one can do with just a bunch of markers. I can't exactly paint either, so I kinda know how you must feel about painting in general. Hopefully, I'll be able to properly learn how to paint someday. Who knows?

When I use markers I transform first the archive in CMYK then I carefull adjust the levels. Usually only the bright colors don't look right after this (cheap marquers usually have very bright colors). If necessary I save it "for web" (the colors will change to RGB, but the palette still looks as CMYK).

Elana: I was told several years back that you can preserve your marker renderings better if you spray fix both sides of the paper with that UV protective spray. They'll still fade over several years because that just seems to be the nature of the beast, but it helps slow the process at least. Either way, I find that my drawings generally keep their color well as long as they're not exposed to a lot of light, so I keep certain drawings in a good, archival portfolio. If you're looking to frame, make sure you're using UV protected glass.

I don't know if there are any markers that have truly long-term stable colors. It's true, dyes fade, and that's what's in most markers. The pigments of some paints change with age too, but no to the extent that dyes do. It's sad that so many great works of art are lost to their own impermanent chemistry.

These are great. My monitor is a wide-gamut, calibrated screen, and from what I can tell everything but the reds looks the most "true" in Adobe RGB. Most monitors can't even reproduce sRGB. You can't ever rely on accurate color reproduction, unless you're seeing the original article with your own eyes.